Holiday BookTubeAThon TBR

The Holiday BookTubeAThon is happening from December 27-29 and I need to get in on some last minute reading, so I thought I'd participate. I watch and comment on enough BookTube videos anyway, so why not?

This year there are four challenges:

1. Read a book with white on the cover
2. Read a follow up to something you enjoyed
3. Read a gift
4. Read three books

Here's a list of some books I'm planning on choosing from to read over those three days. We'll see if I even remotely stick to this TBR or not! (All the covers are linked through to Goodreads if you're interested!)

I've picked a few graphic novels to give myself some quick options. I've had all these on my shelf for some time now, and it's time to get to them!

The first two here are short and should hopefully be easy to get through. Their Fractured Light is the book I'll probably end up reading though, because I am so pumped to finally have it in my hands. There was a lot of squealing and clutching it close to my chest when I unwrapped it yesterday morning.

Between these options I should be able to cover all the challenges... probably. I doubt I'll manage three books in three days, unless I decide to pick up all the graphic novels, but we'll see!

Are you participating? What books do you want to get to before the new year? Let's chat in the comments!

BookTubeAThon Wrap Up

... Haha. This should really be called "BookTubeAThon Spectacular Failure". 

I did not even remotely read things according to plan this week. I actually hit a pretty bad reading slump at the beginning of the week and never really recovered. It's partially because I decided to go into school this week and do some planning for the fall. I'm teaching brand new courses (one of which is a diploma level course, which is fairly high stakes for grade 12 students) and wanted to get a jump on the first couple of units since I'm going to be moving right before school starts up again.

Anyway. I put in 5 hour days of basically non-stop work Monday through Thursday. And when I came home, I did not feel like doing much of anything.

That's not to say I didn't read this week. It just wasn't really what I'd planned on.

Monday

I read about 50 pages of Dead Iron to kick things off after work. And it was just... a little bit more involved than I was anticipating. It's steampunk fantasy and it's fairly complex. I enjoyed what I've read so far, but it wasn't really helping the reluctant reading mood I was in. I haven't read on since Monday, but I'm planning on it.

After dinner I decided I needed something lighter, so I picked up Fables volume 1, which I'd snagged from school earlier that morning. It was fun and enjoyable. I rated it 3 stars.

Tuesday

Tuesday I read the only book that was actually on my TBR, Locke & Key volume 1. The only mistake I made here was reading it so close to bedtime. Holy crap, it was messed up. I really enjoyed it though, and rated it 4 stars.

Wednesday-Friday

I did absolutely no reading these days. Which is definitely because of this reading slump. And also a little because of my impending move related stress.

Saturday

I decided I needed to make up for my lack of reading late Saturday night by picking up Amulet volume 1. I'd also snagged this at the school library earlier in the week. It was a really quick read and quite engaging. I liked it and rated it 3 stars.

Sunday

I watched a bunch of BookTube videos to try and psyche myself back up to reading. I ended up picking up Fractured (Slated #2) because 1) I figured my TBR was never going to happen anyway and 2) I've borrowed this on interlibrary loan and it's due back soon and I can't renew it.

I'm about 25% of the way through this and I should be able to finish it in one or two more sittings. (I would've read more today I think if I hadn't discovered there was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles documentary on Netflix........)

And that was my BookTubeAThon.

What did you read this week? I hope your reading this week went better than mine did!

BookTubeAThon TBR

So the second annual BookTubeAThon is happening next week from July 14-20. And though I don't vlog, I'm still definitely participating. (If you want more information, you can check out their Twitter or Youtube.)

There are a number of reading challenges running, so I thought I'd post my TBR plans for the week. I'm hoping to get around to everything... but we'll see. I'm also hoping this will be a much needed distraction from all the house hunting insanity that's going on in my life right now.

Locke & Key volume 1 by Joel Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

This will complete two challenges: read a book with pictures and read a book with red on the cover.

I picked this up at Comic Expo back in April and I've been meaning to read it. I figure it'll be nice to break up some of the marathon reading with a graphic novel!

Ship Breaker & The Drowned Cities by Paolo Gacigalupi

This will complete the challenge: start and finish a series.

I own Ship Breaker and have had it on at least 2 other readathon TBRs this past year. It's time to get to it. I'm going to have to pick up The Drowned Cities from the library, but that should be fine. I figured might as well read a duology for this challenge and keep it simple!

Dead Iron (Age of Steam #1) by Devon Monk

This will complete two challenges: read a book that someone else picks and read a book from a genre you've read the least from this year.

I haven't read a lot of alternate history type books this year, so I picked three from my shelf and posted them online asking my Facebook friends and Twitter followers to weigh in on what I should read. Dead Iron had the most votes, so there we go!

The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle

This will complete the challenge: read a book and then watch the movie adaptation.

Somehow I completely missed out on The Last Unicorn during my childhood. I have no idea how that happened! But I went with some friends at Comic Expo in April to meet Peter S Beagle and I bought a copy of the book to have him sign. And then I'll find myself a copy of the movie and finally see what I've been missing.

The only challenge left is to read 7 books and/or an average of 300 pages/day during the week. We'll see how the week goes, but I do have a few other graphic novels that I could sneak in to try and round this up to 7 books. I also just picked up Rainbow Rowell's latest, Landline and am dying to read it. So that might make an appearance during this readathon as well.

Are you participating in the BookTubeAThon? Link me to your TBRs! Any thoughts about my list? Let's chat in the comments!

Book Tag || Top 2 Books From 6 Genres

I really need to work on posting more. It's just that this month has been crazy busy. So I thought I'd do a book tag to spice things up.

I found this a while ago on booktube and thought I'd give it a go. It was created by Benjaminoftomes and the original video is here.

The gist is to recommend 2 books from each of the 6 genres. I'm going to try to work a little outside the box and do what I can to pick books I haven't already gushed all over the place about. We'll see if that works!

Dystopia

1. The Darkest Minds Series by Alexandra Bracken
   (Give book 1 a chance to get rolling and I promise you won't regret it. Some of my favourite ensemble dynamics ever come from these books.)
   
2. Wool by Hugh Howey
   (While I do think the latter parts of this sort got off track, there was something so unique and different about the Silos. I picked up the first few parts for free or cheap digitally on Amazon...)

Honourable mention to Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse which actually made me terrified to get on an elevator for a while.

Romance

1. Anything by Rainbow Rowell. No, I'm serious.
   (Though I have a special place in my heart for Fangirl.)
   
2. Pivot Point by Kasie West
   (This may seem surprising, but I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to. And it was an interesting twist on the predictable YA love triangle set up.)

I don't really read a lot of straight up romance. Unless it's fanfiction. I mean, what.

Fantasy

1. Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
   
   (I desperately need to reread this book and continue the series, but I remember just loving it.)
   
2. The Belgariad Series by David Eddings
   (A great intro to high-fantasy. Full of all the wonder, magic and tropes you'd expect. And starring an unforgettable cast of characters.)

I feel like this section was harder than it should have been. I need to read some more fantasy stat!

Sci-Fi

1. Redshirts by John Scalzi
   (Ridiculously fun and funny. If you even have a passing interest in Star Trek, check this out.)
   
2. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
   (Parallel Earths, speculative fiction, and a dynamite collaboration--what's not to love?)

It was really difficult not to mention Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles here, but I figured you already knew I adored those books!

Paranormal

1. Daughter of Smoke & Bone Series by Laini Taylor
   (Okay, so maybe this is predictable, but this series is amazing and I am dying waiting for book 3.)
   
2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater
   (... Again, surprising no one. I love the complexity of this series.)

I don't read a ton of this genre, or at least not much has caught my eye.

Historical

1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
   (I'm sorry, it's impossible not to mention this book. I am just so in love with this portrayal of Patroclus. And I just have so many feels.)
   
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
   (This totally took me by surprise. It's not a book I would've picked up on my own, but it came recommended. I really like the epistolary style--it had me thinking in letter format for days!)

Gail Carriger's Soulless and Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan are also highly recommended. But those are more alternate history than true historical, so!

And that's the tag! What do you think? Have you read any of these books? Feel free to hit me up with some of your own recommendations too!

Christmas BookTubeAThon Wrap Up

Yes, hush, I know I'm still not technically part of BookTube, but I really don't care. A lot of my inspiration came from those vloggers and I'm probably going to be stealing a lot of their tags for future posts.

Anyways. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, some BookTubers decided to hold a Read-A-Thon this past weekend, December 20-22. The idea was to read as much as possible to try and make way for all the books you're sure to get for Christmas.

And I decided to participate. My goal was to read 3 books... but that didn't quite happen. I probably could have read another short book on Sunday, but I just didn't feel like it.

So, check out my accomplishments after the jump!